


The days are long but (honey) the moons are longer

by ImberReader



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Just so much yearning ya'll!, Pining, and hand touching, implied mutual pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-31 01:15:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21031709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ImberReader/pseuds/ImberReader
Summary: Brienne and Jaime sneak away from bustle of a party when it gets tad too overwhelming. But it’s nothing compared to the familiar tide’s swell in her chest of feelings she cannot quite name.





	The days are long but (honey) the moons are longer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nire/gifts).

> I am but 300 Braime fics in a trenchcoat, any mischaracterization or similar issues in this work or any other penned by me are entirely on me as I simply have not consumed original content beyond select clips and passages. 
> 
> Prompt/paragraph prompt fill for lovely Nire who has been a powerful cheering force to be reckoned with. 
> 
> From all my 5-6 started projects, this is somehow the first Braime piece finished and worthy of publishing. Oops? Maybe this is good sign more will follow. 
> 
> Not beta-d. We embarrass ourselves publicly like men. You can find me at scoundrels-in-love on tumblr.

Brienne draws a deep breath, exhales slowly, as if she can expel the noise that still lingers in her head along with it. Now that she is standing at the railing of highest level in the garden, the sounds of ballroom are muffled and so is the moment. She would very much like to enjoy it as such. 

Washed in moonlight, the whole world actually seems muted. There is sharpness to shadows, as not even sheer clouds sway across the moon’s face, but the colors are washed away and when she turns to look at Jaime, who dragged her out here, she can’t discern the green of his eyes, at least not until he tilts his head just _so_ and they catch a spark from mansion’s lights. 

She doesn’t need it, though, to know the shade (all of them, from emerald that’s held against a candle when he’s teasing her to forest before the storm when his thoughts cloud over). And yet, her breath still hitches a little at the sight of him, like this, painted in the moonlight and just a touch of far away, golden glow. 

She wishes she had the words to describe him.

But she is not good with those, has never been. 

Even her high school essays had been graded A, with a note of ‘efficient, but unimaginative’. It had stung enough for her to recall it each time when there are things, _feelings_, tapping against her ribcage, trembling in her throat - formless but not weightless. Undefeatable until she knows their true name and calls them by it. Now and then, the real battle lies in the second part. 

(Perhaps tonight is one of those times.)

Brienne is much better at actions, from proving herself in sports to pouring countless hours over ancient documents and manuscripts just to find one unraveling thread that could lead her to the truth. At drawing, too - what she has no words to say, she can throw on paper or canvas in flurry of colors and lines that she has practiced for thousand times, beginning with that fateful summer when she broke her leg at the age of 11. 

Maybe that’s the thing - you can practice almost any action. There are variables, but after a while, your body will know just the way to do it without thinking; how to wield the medieval fair’s tourney sword or pen to draw the line you see in your mind. But words are water dripping through Brienne’s fingers as she tries to hold onto a river. Mental practice only prepares you for so much, like defending a dissertation, but not the real shifting tide of conversations.

Her hand twitches on the rails, as she wonders briefly how she’d capture him in a sketch. She’d let his hair almost melt with the moon’s glow, capture the shadow’s play on his face as if it’s the only thing separating him from the moonlight. But she has not drawn in so long, having abandoned the hobby for a much more sensible and not less loved venture into history degree. Which has somehow led to Jaime Lannister becoming anything-but-sensible part of her life. 

Who, right now, is looking at her with an unreadable expression. It makes her uneasy, because over the years, she’s learned him so well she can picture his face journey through their conversation over the phone at any given time. The ones she can’t pinpoint are much like a new name or a fact in research - a marvel of its own kind, something process and file away with delight. And yet, these gaps also scare her. Or rather, it’s the things that her heart yearns to read in them.

“Do you want to go back?” She asks, because she has to say _something_ and this is the only thing that she can afford to voice. He shifts to face her more fully, hand brushing over hers and his pinkie remains over hers. It’s not as warm as the feeling flooding up her arm, up into her chest and all the way to her face.

“Do you?” Jaime asks, as if the two are in any way related and her heart stutters fondly, because she knows they are. He should return to the party, Brienne thinks, because they’re here for a fundraiser and it’s not her plain face and encyclopedia of knowledge on swords of Targaryen era that will win them necessary connections. (Connections he already has, in fact.) She should tell him so. Should say yes at least, so he comes with her. But Bloodraven Museum of History is as far as the moon right now and she’s afforded honesty, instead of thoughtfulness. 

“No.”

“Then we stay.” His palm moves to cover hers and it doesn’t matter that hers isn’t dainty enough to be swallowed by his, like in the books. Brienne looks away first, because there are the almost-nameless feelings again, almost ready to hatch into actions as they tingle on her lips and underneath his hand. And while he might call her _action girl_, this is one bear pit she cannot jump in. (It’s more of his forte, anyway.) Even if in the moonlight it almost looks like he wants her to. 

That is how Sansa finds them, their absence having been noted by Catelyn and probably most others. She draws a deep breath again, as if she could inhale and capture the last fading remnants of this moment somewhere in her lungs, and tells her friend they will be right in. 

It’s when the redhead turns that Jaime’s fingers entwine with Brienne’s and if neither let go even long after they’ve returned to the party, then it’s just because. 

Just because. 

(Some things cannot be defeated even when named.)


End file.
